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Doing this !

On Sunday I was lucky enough to score a free ride in the Remax hot air Balloon over Kemptville, short notice ( couple hours ) left me scrambling to  find some charged batteries - I had broken my own rule of always charging batteries when they are run down ...

I was taking some photos of the balloon inflation when it was time to go, stupidly I didnt put the cap back on the 14-24mm lens  to protect that nice big shiny front element, climbing into the basket I just bumped the front element into part of the basket... and I'm now lucky enough to have a thin 1cm long scratch on the front.  8years of owning the lens, not a scratch on it wiped out in a few seconds

You can see some of the aerial shots of Kemptville taken with the lens after I scratched it...

Besides the lower resale value if I ever want to sell this awesome lens, It looks like I was lucky ( stupid!!) enough to only come away with cosmetic damage to the front of the lens, I cant see any effect on the images so far.   I made sure to put the lens cap on exiting the balloon!

*ironically during the pre flight briefing the pilot had mentioned to not worry about the cameras during a rough landing... I told him thats what insurance is for...  little did I know !